It was too late in the day to follow the trail farther at this time,
knowing that the deer would run a long distance before stopping. As I
had a team engaged to take me to my camp and I was anxious to get
there on the first tracking snow, I concluded to give the white deer
a rest a few days until I returned from camp in the big woods. I was
in camp only a few days when the snow went off, so I came home. I had
only been home a day or two when a man by the name of Hill came to my
house in great haste. He had been cutting logs en a hill, and looking
across onto a hill opposite where he was working, saw the white deer,
so came to tell we what he had seen. I at once took my gun and
started after the deer. I went up the hill in the direction that Mr.
Hill had seen the deer until I was quite sure that I was well above
the deer, then cautiously worked my way down the side of that hill.
There being no snow on the ground and the deer being white, I soon
discovered it lying in its bed. I cautiously crept up within shooting
distance and fired, killing the deer instantly.

I will explain how it happened that these deer disappeared so
suddenly at the time Judge Stebens accused me of killing the white
deer and the wager was made between the Judge and your humble
servant. A man by the name of Frank Williams had shot the deer
breaking a foreleg at the knee joint, and this caused the deer to
remain hidden away until it recovered from the wound. The leg or
joint was stiff when the deer was killed and the force of the bullet
was so spent that it lay against the skin after shattering the knee
joint and I still have the ball which I took from the knee. I had the
deer mounted and Mrs. Boyington took it as she was collecting freaks
and curios of this country.

CHAPTER XXXV.

A Day of Luck.

Every hunter of long experience could tell of the ups and downs along
the trail consisting of good, bad and indifferent luck and as usual
tell of our hits and let others tell of our misses, I will tell of a
day of good luck. It was in November and there was no snow on the
ground. I was camping on the Holman branch of Pine Creek in
Pennsylvania and one night, just at dark, a party of several men came
to my camp and asked to stay over night. They stated that they were
going to camp on the opposite side of the ridge on the Sinnamahoning
waters. My camp was small but I made room for the hunters the best I
could.

This party was going into a section